CUP: Martin The Difference At Hendrick This Season

Sprint Cup

CUP: Martin The Difference At Hendrick This Season

Mark Martin has won three NASCAR Sprint Cup races this season, tied for most in the series...

Jim Pedley | http://www.RacinToday.com | Posted June 18, 2009 Charlotte, NC

Mark Martin and Hendrick Motorsports have teamed up to win three NASCAR Sprint Cup races so far this season. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Hendrick Motorsports has always had this wonderful assortment of human parts and pieces.

It’s had the type of faces which keep People Magazine in business. It’s had the pit-box geniuses who have propelled crew chiefing – and even tire-changing – to a spectator sport. It’s had the owner for whom every driver in the sport wants to drive, to whom every sponsor wants to give money and with whom every fan wishes he was their mother were married.

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It has all added up to major, major NASCAR success. So much success that the Hendrick Motorsports museum and gift shop looks like Trophy World at the mall.

Yep, since its inception, the impression has been that Hendrick Motorsports has it all.

But now, quite obviously, it has more.

HMS now has a heart and soul that, if not missing in the past, may have been tough to pinpoint.

It now has Mark Martin.

It’s been dang interesting listening to the voices coming out of the Hendrick camp this year. Good interesting, too.

It gives you a sense of just what a quiet, unassuming, 50-year-old blue-collar hod-carrier of a worker has brought to the HMS table.

Of course, virtually none of it comes out of Martin’s mouth. He just smiles and thanks everybody from the boss to his crew to his teammates to his luck to his wife to the four winds.

Rick Hendrick, on the other hand, has been effusive in detailing Martin’s contribution to the team. And Hendrick loves to finger the non-driving contributions.

Following Martin’s victory at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday, Mr. H was at it again.

When asked if Martin has brought more than simple, native driving ability to his team, Hendrick launched.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jim Pedley

RacinToday.com

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